88.1 Public policy.

It is the policy of this state to assure so far as possible every working person in the state safe and healthful working conditions and to preserve human resources by:

1. Encouraging employers and employees in their efforts to reduce the number of occupational safety and health hazards at their places of employment, and to stimulate employers and employees to institute new and perfect existing programs for providing safe and healthful working conditions.

2. Providing that employers and employees have separate but dependent responsibilities and rights with respect to achieving safe and healthful working conditions.

3. Authorizing the labor commissioner to set mandatory occupational safety and health standards applicable to businesses, and by providing for an adjudicatory process through the employment appeal board within the department of inspections and appeals for carrying out adjudicatory functions under the chapter.

4. Building upon advances already made through employer and employee initiative for providing safe and healthful working conditions.

5. Providing for research in the field of occupational safety and health, including the psychological factors involved, and by developing innovative methods, techniques, and approaches for dealing with occupational safety and health problems.

6. Exploring ways to discover latent diseases, establishing causal connections between diseases and work in environmental conditions, and conducting other research relating to health problems, in recognition of the fact that occupational health standards present problems often different from those involved in occupational safety.

7. Providing medical criteria which will assure insofar as practicable that no employee will suffer diminished health, functional capacity or life expectancy as a result of the employee’s work experience.

8. Providing for training programs to increase the number and competence of personnel engaged in the field of occupational safety and health.

9. Providing for the development and promulgation of occupational safety and health standards.

10. Providing an effective enforcement program which shall include a prohibition against giving advance notice of any inspection and sanctions for an individual violating this prohibition.

11. Providing for appropriate reporting procedures with respect to occupational safety and health which procedures will help achieve the objectives of this chapter and accurately describe the nature of the occupational safety and health problem.

12. Encouraging joint labor-management efforts to reduce injuries and disease arising out of employment.

13. Devoting adequate funds to the administration and enforcement of occupational safety and health standards and rules promulgated by the labor commissioner.

[C66, 71, §88A.1; C73, 75, 77, 79, 81, §88.1]

86 Acts, ch 1245, §519; 2018 Acts, ch 1026, §33

Subsection 3 amended